News Microsoft releases Vista beta to the 'public'

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/06/09/microsoft_vista_beta_public/

 

The dvd discs are actually £10.98 delivery in the UK ... so not exactly "free" !

 

lol, free to download. I only have another 12 hours to wait until my download starts....

 

12 HOURS!

Might as well get it off bit torrent. Shouldnt be illegal since it's avaliable to all.

How many of these betas will end up on DVDs being sold on ebay to "buy Vista"?? I can see what MS are doing, but it's a very sharp double edged sword.

 

Anyone else get this every time they clink on the supplied link?

<A88>

 

Yup - I got a Product Key, but I can't get on the download site. If the number of downloads is limited, as you suggest, that'll really wind me up.

When all is said and done, I can read as much as I like about Vista, but I'd rather try it for myself.

 

Downloading at 2mb...

 

Does someone want to PM their download link please seeing as mine doesn't seem to want to work? It would be much appreciated if anyone could

<A88>

 

I'd snagged a copy of Vista Beta 2 a week ago, but with the key it was supplied with, it wouldn't activate unsurprisingly. I signed up for the public beta last night to get a proper key, and using the "Change Your Product Key" button Microsoft have so helpfully included, I entered my new key and the activation went through correctly. Much easier than trying to do that in XP! I'd call that a successful test myself.

I tried installing it on one of my older PCs, but it never seems to get any further than the Welcome screen. I've also got it running in VMware, but I don't seem to have a sidebar, so I can't test that feature out... does it need turning on from somewhere I've not found yet? Or does it require Aero to be running? Since VMware doesn't provide a 3D graphics card I don't get all the fancy glass effects.

 

Downloading at 215k/s here. Should be finished in 3hrs.

I won't install it for ages though, bit busy at the moment (uni exams).

 

should I be worried then? my ISO download only weighs in at ~14MB, has something gone wrong?

c.u.later

EDIT: Nevermind, downloaded the 64bit one which is tiny, the 32 bit is bout 3.1GBs :O

 

32bit= ~3.4GB
64bit= ~4GB

<A88>

 

32bit: http://download.windowsvista.com/dl...inmain_beta2_x86fre_client-LB2CFRE_EN_DVD.iso

64bit: http://download.windowsvista.com/dl...nmain_beta2_x64fre_client-LB2CxFRE_EN_DVD.iso

edit: seems they have changed the links since yesterday

 

Oops, didn't catch that delivery charge!

I don't understand why so many people are having problems, I have managed to download both the 32 and 64 bit versions at around 700kb/s at home and each download only took about 90 minutes.

Burning the 32-bit version to DVD as I type...

EDIT: Atomic... I'm sure Microsoft are cleverer than that

 

Thanks for the PM! Simply got an 'Access Denied' error message though Seems like I'm just gonna have to wait a while to get it.

Edit: Just deleted my temps and the original link they sent me works! Downloading at approx 400KB/sec atm.

<A88>

 

Ah they've changed the links since yesterday then. damns.

 

Anyone have a good torrent for beta 2? Their download links dont work from their own site I have the key I need after signing up but they dont download.

 

winbeta have it on there xdcc servers

 

Irc? :/

I wanted to download it whilst in work where I have a 10MBit connection.

 

ive being trying since 9 o'clock this morning and still getting a message saying unavailable due to high demand!!